


Strange Company

by beetle



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Attempted Kidnapping, Bottom Spike (BtVS), Boys In Love, Claiming, Claiming Bites, Crack Crossover, Crack Treated Seriously, Failboats In Love, Fluff and Angst, Goblet of Fire: The Musical, Humor, I Don't Even Know, Idiots in Love, Jamaharon, Love At First Bite - Freeform, Love at First Sight, M/M, Post-Chosen, Risa - Freeform, Section 31, Smut, The Zeppo, Top Sulu, post-nfa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-17
Updated: 2013-05-17
Packaged: 2017-12-12 03:12:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/806534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After an unforgettable night that he's conveniently forgotten, Hikaru Sulu wakes up in a strange hotel room, with a strange ache, and strange company.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strange Company

**Author's Note:**

> Notes/Warnings: Vague spoilers for ST:XI, ST: DS9, BtVS/Ats. Crack, to angst, and back again. Very mild violence. Written for rosivan's prompt: _Sulu/Spike.... and I think that'll be difficult on it's own._ You ain't just whistlin' Dixie, hon

“Ow, m' hea' . . . m'  _nehh!_  Th' fuhhhh?!”  
  
  
It's the first thing Hikaru says—slurs, really—when he wakes up the morning after his final night of leave on Risa. Said slurring only calls to more immediate attention the fact that his neck is ridiculously sore, and his tongue, swollen and numb, tastes like an old, thrashed carpet--complete with gross stuff tracked in by careless feet.  
  
  
Just struggling up into sitting position is effort-times-nine jillion, but he does, swinging his legs over the side cautiously, without cracking his eyes more than a micron. He doesn't need to open them to know the room is slowly revolving, like a nauseating waltz.  
  
  
His body and brain feel just as turned around as the room, and upright is  _not_  a position that he loves right now. But at least the spinning room is also relatively dim. The atmospheric tint on the windows is cranked well above where Hikaru likes it, which is weird since, like any SoCal boy, he loves natural sunlight, and always has the atmospheric tint on his window set somewhere between five and ten percent. And that only till he's properly awake.  
  
  
A glance at the clock says it's mid-morning, Risan time, which kinda makes a man wonder where the hell the rest of the past six teen hours went. Last thing he remembers, is soaking up some last minute rays with Pavel, at the hotel pool. Then Pavel had spotted McCoy sitting in a shady corner, the only person wearing a sweater, jeans, and boots--period, let alone poolside--and alternating stabbing three different PADDs with blunt, frustrated fingers.  
  
  
“Where're  _you_  goin'?” Hikaru had asked when Pavel stood up, pale under his slight sunburn, wearing ridiculously loud swim-trunks and exuding determination.  
  
  
“I am going to take the bool by the hooves. I hope not to see you until morning,” he'd said, finishing his Bolian Fizz in one long swallow. He'd handed Hikaru the glass, squared his shoulders, and strode off, McCoy-ward.  
  
  
Grinning, Hikaru'd made his exit shortly thereafter—right around the time McCoy put down the PADDs, and  _laughed_  at something Pavel had said--silently wishing his closest friend good luck. After a quick shower back at his room, he'd comm'ed Kirk and Scotty, and agreed to catch up with them that evening for the Moon Festival. . . .  
  
  
His very last memory before an impenetrable wall of nothing goes up between yesterday and today, is of trying to make his wet hair lay flat, mostly succeeding, and then mugging in the mirror.  
  
  
_I'm so easily amused,_  he'd thought, not for the first time that day, or even that hour. He'd been in a good mood since arriving at Risa, and for the first time ever, he thought he just  _might_ sample the local talent. End the evening with a figurative bang. . . .  
  
  
Now he groans in abject misery.  _For the way I feel, there'd better have been a bang. Maybe six bangs. Though God, not with Kirk. Please, not with El Capitan Man-Whore. The last thing I need is some funny kinda Risan Syphilis. Jeez. Maybe it's better I was black-out drunk. At least I'll still be able to look Kirk and myself in the ey--_  
  
  
It's then that he realizes his mouth doesn't taste  _boozy_ , and despite the ache in his head, he doesn't think he's hungover. Which leaves only one other cause besides injury (and he's not injured), but he  _couldn't_  have been drugged, could he? Granted, Risa  _can be_  that sort of place, but it's never been that sort of place for Hikaru. He's neither easy enough nor high enough in professional rank to make date-rape or kidnapping worth it.  
  
  
And even  _if_  . . . why would he be drugged, and then left to wander back to his own room?  
  
  
It makes no sense to even Hikaru's sluggish brain, but he has no doubt that he  _has_  been drugged. It's like Spock says . . . something about impossible and improbable, and . . .  _some_ damn thing or other . . . bickety-bam: solution.  
  
  
It's very logical and sane-sounding, when Hikaru can remember it all. So he latches onto that. For all of five seconds before he's in, for him, extreme panic mode.  
  
  
“Fuhh me, wha' th' fuh  _happe'_  las' nigh'?” he moans to his dim hotel room, very much  _not_ expecting any kind of response not supplied by himself. So when cool hands run up and down his back like they've done it a thousand times before, Hikaru understandably screeches.  
  
  
Like a startled little old lady.  
  
  
In fact, he's so startled, the cause of his sluggish disorientation is completely forgotten as he all but levitates off the bed, whirling into a clumsy Crane Gobbles Tiger defense maneuver. Unfortunately, he trips over a [horga'hn](http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Horga'hn), and tumbles backward on his ass  _hard_.  
  
  
A second later, three sets of coolly amused blue eyes, topped by three white-blond bed-heads, peer over the edge of the mattress. The eyes and hair are quickly joined by Cheshire cat smiles with too many teeth.  
  
  
“What  _didn't_  happen, pet? Now there's an easier question to answer, innit?” The strange guy  _in Hikaru's bed_  says in a deep, English accent that'd probably be sexy if not for the fact that it shouldn't even  _be_  here. But at least he stops being three of himself after a few seconds. But the one of him that's left is easily pretty enough for  _ten_  people.  
  
  
It's at this comfortable and secure moment that Hikaru realizes he's completely, bare-ass naked--a state that he's usually only ever in while showering—and sprawled on the floor. Not to mention that, despite the depressed state of his system, he'd still woken up hard, like he has every healthy day of his life since he was twelve.  
  
  
And if leering was a Galactic Olympic event, this guy could leer for Earth—possibly for the entire Federation. Hell, he's even thrown in some galaxy-class tongue-curling and eye-fucking, which  _has_  to be good for picking up extra technique points. Even the Andorian judge'd have to give that a standing O--  
  
  
Realizing he's been sprawling and staring at the stranger's mouth, and raising wood like it's going out of style, Hikaru covers his hard-on with both hands, blushing. Getting hard, he's used to. Getting hard because of some random guy who's staring at him . . . not so much.  
  
  
“Who you and wha' th' hell you do' in my roo'?” he says, struggling to his feet, careful of the  _horga'hn_  of doom (it's presumably the stranger's, since Hikaru wouldn't be caught dead carrying one. Though last he'd heard, Kirk has at least fifteen in his room). The intruder's elevator eyes follow him up, ticking obviously between his face and his hand-covered crotch, and it'd  _really_  help if he stopped licking his lips. It'd help a  _lot_ , but Hikaru's  _not_  about to admit that.  
  
  
“Well, if you'd like, I  _could_  be doin' you, soldier-boy,” the guy says, all clever and innuendo-laden. One eyebrow, scarred, quirks in a sultry sort of way, and those dilithium-glow eyes seem to flicker for a moment, blue-gold-blue. Which means whatever druggy-payload is still in Hikaru's system is pretty bad news. Maybe hallucinogenic. “Or you could be doin' me. I like it both ways.”  
  
  
Hikaru catches his eyes in the midst of fluttering shut. It's all too easy to imagine that clever mouth put to much better uses than talking. He tries to imitate Spock's glare-of-death. “Tre'pass inna roo' of a Starflee' officer! I  _wi'_  'ncapacita' you an' have you detain', if you don' gimme damn goo' reason why--” it's here that Sulu falters, and the stranger's leer becomes a Cheshire cat smile again. Which doesn't do a damn thing but help his erection along.  
  
  
“Why . . . what, exactly?” the stranger asks lowly, and that eyebrow's really inching up, now. “Why . . . I'm so impossibly sexy before noon? Why . . . your command of Standard's gone to the dogs? Oh, and in case you hadn't noticed whose room you're  _not_  in, pet. . . .”  
  
  
And yeah, though this room looks a lot like Hikaru's, all delicate, cream-colored walls and abstract furniture, it's much larger. Like . . .  _five times_  larger. Decked out in scads of modern and alien art. The bed takes up at least one quarter the room, festooned in soft, cream-colored pillows, hangings, and sheets. Which should clash with the stranger's blanched-ivory skin and moon-white (it looks softer than clouds) hair, but it doesn't. Not really. If anything, the stranger's naked, compactly-muscled frame is perfectly showcased, and--  
  
  
_Well, he's not a natural blond. Then again, who is?_  Hikaru thinks inanely. Then realizes that not only is he staring at this guy's junk, but said junk is rising to full attention  _as_  he stares. And possibly drools.  
  
  
The stranger lounges back in bed, dilithium eyes half-lidded, limbs sprawled in what's clearly an invitation. And even if it wasn't  _clearly_  and invitation, the way the stranger's started touching himself (everywhere but that pale-pink cock, though it's already hugging his stomach, now) would be folding handwritten cards with dates, times, and places—not to mention reassuring that there  _will_  be validated parking for those with their own transports, and please RSVP as soon as possible.  
  
  
“Think maybe we should both stop posturin', and  _you_  should bring that incredible arse of yours back to bed, yeah?” The Cheshire cat smile becomes something that's almost a  _real_  smile, wry and kinda weary. The stranger's wandering hand, shapely, strong, and tipped with iridescent black nail-color, slides down well-defined abs Hikaru does  _not_  want to memorize with his fingers. Then his tongue. “C'mon, Starfleet, back in bed. I don't bite . . . except when it's warranted. And I  _don't_  make a habit of bringin' drugged blokes back to my suite, even when they're as incredibly charming as you are, so--”  
  
  
“Yeah, I' fuhhin  _Lor' Byro'_  whe' drug'! Tha' how you go' me here?”  _Not that you needed to drug me, asshole. You're the first guy I've really_ wanted _in years. If you'd winked at me, I'd have been yours for as long as you wanted, no drugs required._  
  
  
“I've no doubt by the time we left the Festival, the drugs'd already gone to work. But I wasn't the one slipped 'em to you.” The stranger gives him another heated once over and Hikaru flushes. Realizes he's still naked, still hard, and quickly drags some kind of knit throw off the foot of the bed and wraps it around his waist. All under the stranger's watchful amusement. “I brought you back here to keep the person who  _did_  drug you from getting . . . whatever they wanted, as I had my doubts that it'd be anything you were interested in givin' up without a fight. And in that spirit of not lettin' you get taken . . .  _advantage of_ , I kept myself  _to_  myself all night. Though I won't say I wasn't tempted.”  
  
  
Which is something Hikaru's kinda figured out for himself. His body doesn't ache in any way that he associates with sex: his jaw isn't achy, he doesn't  _think_  he's got dick-chafe. But it's good to hear it said. Even though he's got a feeling he shouldn't trust this guy as far as he could throw him.  
  
  
_Maybe not with my life savings, or my little brother, but he's not a rapist, whatever else he is. Nor is he a kidnapper._  
  
  
“So, uh, i'  _you_  didn' drug me—ah,  _fuhh_!” Hikaru fights to get his mouth working the way it should. It's probably been at least twelve hours since he got drugged with . . . whatever. It's gotta start wearing off soon, right? “You . . . didn' . . . drug me . . . who did?”  
  
  
“Dunno. Well. Didn't know then, but I did think you were actin' like a man with a snoot fulla somethin' illegal.” The stranger's smile fades, and those blue-blue eyes weigh and measure him for several extremely long moments. “Guessin'' you aren't normally the type that goes and slams a dashing bloke up against a kebab kiosk, crams your tongue down said bloke's throat, and offers to suck his cock dry right there, as a way of introducin' y'self. . . ?”  
  
  
Hikaru shakes his head  _no_ , vehemently, and the stranger snorts. “Didn't think so. Bloody too bad, though, cos I can assure you . . . the bloke was  _very_  appreciative,” he says wistfully. “Anyway, somethin' tasted off about you, delicious though you are. Too many chemicals and a bitter burn at the back of my throat. Er, had to let you  _keep_  kissin' me, didn't I? Only way to figure out what you'd been slipped, obviously.”  
  
  
“Uh-huh.” Hikaru scoffs as much as his carpet-tongue will allow, and the stranger clears his throat, his lips curved in what clearly wants to be a smirk. “Right. So, pushy, unpleasant bint comes over, makin' out like she's your long-sufferin' wife. Says she has a taxi waitin' to take you home. Suffice it to say I was skeptical--”  
  
  
“No' marr'!”  
  
  
The stranger nods. “That's what I figured, 'specially since I neither felt nor saw a wedding ring on those talented, curious fingers of yours as they made their way down my trousers. Anyway, I told the the little woman to sod off. That if, as she claimed, you were her husband, then you'd find your way home in the morning, bringing an entirely new skill-set with you. And she'd have me to thank.”  
  
  
“Theh'?”  
  
  
“Well, then your alleged wife . . . didn't get a bit shirty, not like one would expect. Not even when you started kissin' me again. She just kinda . . . left. Which I numbered as odd, but didn't mind at all, since it left me with an armful of very amorous  _you_.” The stranger actually sounds wistful, like this stroll down memory lane isn't a felony offense for whomever did the drugging. “'Course, on the way back here, the little woman tried to hypo us both as we rounded a corner. Got you, but good. Tried to get me, too—an' I didn't take well to that. Gave her a dose of her own medicine and woulda left her there, snorin' and droolin' but for you.”  
  
  
The stroking stops and the stranger somehow, gracefully, makes his way out of the pit-trap bed, and pads his naked, unabashed way to a door that's either a closet or a bathroom. But all Hikaru has eyes for is the way muscles ripple under pale skin, the aesthetic harmony of the most beautiful being he's ever seen,  _flowing_  across the room like oiled smoke. . . .  
  
  
Well. That's all he has eyes for till the stranger opens the door, and a fucking  _body_  tumbles out, swaddled in ridiculous amounts of black, and hopefully only unconscious.  
  
  
“After I made sure you were safe here, I figured I should go back and get  _this_  just in case it could provide answers, should you care for them,” the stranger muses, prodding the body with one long toe also tipped in iridescent black. The woman, pale-faced and limp, stirs sluggishly, and a soft moan barely reaches Hikaru's ears. “Wakey-wakey, darling! Eggs and bakey!”  
  
  
Another moan that ends in a weak snore.  
  
  
The stranger looks up at Hikaru, who's been too repeatedly gobsmacked to know  _how_  to feel, or what to do. For all he knows, this guy is some kind of elaborate hoax toward some strange end. Though that's kind of hard to believe when the guy smiles at him, like a man who's having more fun than he has in a very boring lifetime.  
  
  
Hikaru looks down at the snoring woman. Her face is about as familiar as the stranger's, though not nearly as attractive. Neither round, nor sharp, nor square, no distinguishing features, fine dark blonde hair cut too short for any style.  
  
  
The stranger stops prodding Hikaru's alleged, lights-out Not-Wife and takes a step toward Hikaru, who takes a step back, nearly dropping the throw, not that it's offering any concealment at this point. “Right. That's all I know. So, what say we put the little lady back in the closet, and you make good on the rest of those wicked,  _nasty_  things you promised me, yeah?”  
  
  
“ _The reh'_?!” Hikaru shakes his head in negation, even as the stranger nods, and leers, and leers some more. He should look ridiculous—like some over-done lothario, but he doesn't. He looks like exactly what Hikaru's been needing, and so help him, he wants to pin this stranger to the nearest flat surface and plow him hard and fast till one of them sprains something important. “Nuh-uh! Tha' wa' th' drug talki'! I' sober now!”  
  
  
He backs away till his thighs hit the bed and he pinwheels his arms to keep from sitting down--so much for the useless throw, slithering to the floor--and the stranger's crossing the room, still smiling, still hard, still completely cool with his high level of nudity. Said cool is especially alarming to Hikaru, as if having a cock pointed at him is more intimidating than having a phaser set to kill pointed at him.  
  
  
“I know you're sober, now, pet. Been waitin'  _all night_  for you to wake up sober, so I can take advantage of you with your full and right-minded consent.” Which makes no freaking sense whatsoever, and while Hikaru's sludgy mind is trying to parse it, the stranger's strong arms are sliding around him, holding him close. His face is all blue eyes, square jaw and razor-sharp cheekbones. Uncommon, but handsome. So ridiculously. . . .  
  
  
“Sto'—we shoul' ca' loc'l 'thor'ties,” Hikaru says, and that beautiful, fucking  _perfect_  body is pressing against his, hard  _everywhere_ , and as implacable as a brick wall. Which really doesn't help with the formation of words, or even thoughts. Reason is apparently allergic to skin-on-skin--and shimmying, there's now  _shimmying_ \--which feels far too good because it's been far too  _long_  since Hikaru had anything like this. His particular preferences have all but forced him to live like a monk since joining Starfleet. “No, no--p'lice. 'Fore she wa' up.”  
  
  
“Secret agent man, there, can't hurt me. And I won't let her hurt you.” The stranger grabs Hikaru's ass and curls one talented looking tongue over his teeth and licks his lips again. Then he licks Hikaru's, a lingering swipe of cool, wet tongue. “The name's William Betancourt. Got somethin' special you'd like to be called while you're buggering me, or shall I just stick with 'Sulu'—can't tell if that's your first name or last, and I didn't get a chance to ask last night. Though I don't suppose it matters, really.”  
  
  
“'Tay ba'!” This conversation isn't going at all as planned. Nope. Not when Betancourt shoves him down on the ridiculously soft and deep bed, (long-term sleeping on this would be ruinous for posture and the back in general) and Hikaru has to scrabble back toward the head board just to avoid being straddled.  
  
  
Then winds up straddled, anyway, and forced to hastily drag a pillow across his lap to belatedly hide the fact that his body? Is  _so_  on board with the impending mattress sports no matter who's laying on the floor.  
  
  
Betancourt pouts and makes a damn fine show of stroking himself—the most unabashed rent-boy pose Hikaru's ever seen, and he's been a lot of places. “Don't you like me, Sulu?” he asks softly, gone still and frame-worthy, like some piece of old-fashioned marble statuary:  
  
  
_Spurned Lover With Erect Cock In Hand_.  
  
  
Hikaru groans. Wonders if he's the only one who has days like this. He knows Pavel doesn't, poor kid—though that may only be because McCoy's too stubborn to see what's in front of his scowling face. “I—yea'. You sa' me fro' gett'n ki'napp'--aaay'!” he exclaims, trying for affronted, or appalled, or some word that probably begins with an “A” when the pillow gets snatched and tossed away. “A'ho'!”  
  
  
“Sticks and stones, pet. Sticks and stones.” Betancourt says, grinning playfully when Hikaru's resumed retreat ends with the headboard. The latent strength in the hands that take Hikaru's ankles and drags him forward is, frankly, scary. But all Betancourt does is trace cartilage and bone with his thumbs, and stare at Hikaru's cock, licking his lips once again. It's enough to make a guy feel like an _hors d'oeuvre_ , but in a really hot, and only slightly creepy way. And creepy is, by no means, a turn-off to Hikaru. In fact, one could say creepy is a  _major selling point_  for Hikaru, and--  
  
  
\--still the stranger stares. Hikaru never realized he had  _that_  much cock to stare at.  
  
  
“I could tell you stories about the gag reflex I don't have . . . but I'd much rather give you a demonstration.” Those blue eyes tick to Hikaru's and Betancourt doesn't wait a second longer for an answer Hikaru couldn't summon the cognitive composure to give anyway, spellbound as he is. Betancourt drags him closer still, swooping down like a white vulture and--  
  
  
“Oh. Mah. Gah!” Hikaru exclaims, falling back into the pillows, one hand reaching out not to clench in Betancourt's hair, but to touch it. It  _is_  softer than clouds, and Betancourt  _wasn't_  lying. He has absolutely no gag reflex. Hikaru's pretty sure that the tip of his cock is glancing off spleen every time he bucks up into Betancourt's tireless swallowing.  
  
  
Nearly mindless with how incredibly  _amazing_  it is to drive his fever-hot flesh up into cool, wet, welcoming relief, Hikaru's more than happy to keep doing so until he comes, and probably bursts every blood vessel in his brain. . . .  
  
  
_Hold on, a minute--_  
  
  
“Wai'—sto'—sto'!” he gasps, shoving weakly, half-heartedly at Betancourt's shoulder, and Betancourt indeed stops, pulling off of him with a slow, obscenely noisy slurp that momentarily drives everything else out of Hikaru's head and almost makes him come. It's several minutes before he can open his eyes, and when he does, he's finds himself blinking up into those too-vivid eyes because Betancourt's hovering over him worriedly, arms bracketing Hikaru's head. His eyes are wide and grave, and he looks like he's closer to Pavel's age, than Hikaru's, but Hikaru's certain Pavel's never looked this . . . chastened.  
  
  
Whatever artifice and guile Betancourt'd been displaying in spades before is completely  _gone_ now, like a covering of leaves blown off the surface of a quicksand bog. Vulnerability deep enough to die a slow death in.  
  
  
“Never let it be said William Ramsay Betancourt isn't a proper gentleman. Please accept my deepest, and most sincere apologies for my boorish behavior, and know that I would never,  _never_  force you to do anything you don't wish to do. In my . . . excitement, I  _thought_ , well, never mind what I thought.” He closes his eyes and sits back on his heels, bowing his head and holding it in his hands like he's afraid it's about to fly off. When next he speaks, it's practically a whisper. “Suffice it to say, sometimes things get . . . mixed up and turned 'round in my head. Sometimes, the devil on my shoulder takes the reins, and it . . . I apologize again. That I caused you undue alarm--”  
  
  
“It. Oh. Kay. I. Sah-ee,” Hikaru forces out past his stupid, numb-tongue. Betancourt just kind of folds in on himself, shaking his head, and Hikaru doesn't at all feel like a mean, awful, horrible, not to mention utterly heartless monster.  
  
  
_But what else could I say?_  he wonders, completely torn, and markedly lacking in previous experience to draw on.  _I barely know the guy. I'm not Kirk, to just go fucking anything that catches my eye. He could be anyone, have anything, and it's already obvious that he's not anything like, oh,_ sane _. And, damnit, there's a woman who allegedly tried to kidnap me, snoring on the floor not ten feet away, and . . . hey, when exactly did the snoring stop?_  
  
  
Just then there's a red flash from behind Betancourt, and his chest lights up a similar, baleful red, glowing bright enough to turn his startled eyes violet . . . just before they close and he topples silently forward onto Hikaru--who's stunned even aside from having the breath driven from him—and toppling them both to the bed.  
  
  
_Looks like he really fell for the oooool' Sulu charm!_  tap-dances across Hikaru's consciousness in Uncle Masa's raspy-weird voice. Complete with the requisite  _wakka-wakka-wakka!_  noises that used to slay Hikaru when he and Anza were little. . . .  
  
  
Then he's shaking Betancourt's shoulders to wake him--ignoring the fact that the chest against his own is both far too warm, and far too still. He kisses the crown of Betancourt's head and buries his face in cloud-soft hair. “Be'cour'?  _Wi'iam'?!_  'Plea' be o'ay?” he murmurs frantically, even as Betancourt's skin cools too rapidly. There's not a pulse to be had from shoulder to wrist, not a twitch in those strong, beautiful hands, no matter how hard Hikaru squeezes them. “Wa' up, plea' wa' up?”  
  
  
“So'ry. No' g'nna happ',” a cold and slurring voice says, and Hikaru doesn't need to look up to know his alleged abductor and lights-out Not-Wife is standing at the foot of the bed, phaser pointed at him. He supposes he could feint, using Betancourt's body as a shield, and make for the door. It's a ploy that's worked before on undercover and away missions, only . . . that sort of thing's a lot easier to do when the body in question was a dead Klingon who'd tried to gut your captain.  
  
  
Not so easy when the body is insanely, inhumanly, unbelievably lovely, and belongs to a man who saved your life, and who then tried to give you what probably would've been the best blowjob you've had in years.  
  
  
_Practically impossible_  when the body belongs to a guy who, when he's not talking like . . . whatever the hell he talks like, has the sensibility of a Dickensian hero.  
  
  
Hikaru may wind up paying for this unaccustomed squeamishness with his life, but he can't use space-age Pip as a human shield.  
  
  
“Didn' ha' t' kill'im'," he tells the Not-Wife, though it's pointless. Anyone who'd shoot-to-kill a naked, unarmed man can neither be shamed, nor bargained with; and anyway, between the drugs and a strangely keen sort of grief, Hikaru feels like he couldn't effectively fight his way out of a wet paper bag.  
  
  
“Wor's tinie't vi'lin, kid. Fuhh. I e'pected leas'  _one_  sudden movemen'—leas' a'  _'temp'_  to ge' 'way. You fuh'in p'theti'.” At the derisive laugh in the Not-Wife's voice, Hikaru opens his eyes and looks at her. She's standing--barely--and listing a little to the left, but her phaser arm is steady, and aimed straight at him. Her features are all drug-droopy, her skin the color of new cheese, or old gym socks. Her eyes are a bright, keen blue at odds with the sea of red surrounding them and the lack of conscience she's clearly got going on. Her smile is as cold and dead as her voice.  
  
  
Defense and martial arts training aside, line-of-duty kills aside, he's never in his life  _wanted_  to kill someone who didn't crew the Narada. But he wants that now. He wants his retractable katana, which is probably laying in an alley somewhere nearby. He wants Betancourt to have left her unconscious body in that alley to be eaten by stray cats and alley rats.  
  
  
He wants his siblings to be here, ready to take retribution in ways the Not-Wife couldn't even conceive of—oh, yes, he wants that last more than he's ever wanted anything, because he knows that he alone couldn't make her suffer enough for killing poor, dead Betancourt. Not even if they both lived to be a thousand. But between the Siblings Sulu, something could no doubt be arranged.  
  
  
However, none of that would bring Betancourt back from the dead.  
  
  
He closes his eyes again. Concentrates on the way Betancourt's hair smells, like newly-harvested spearmint. It's calming, and makes him think of Kei's herb garden, which used to be their grandmother's till she retired to Mars. “Wha' you wan' wi' me?”  
  
  
“ _I_ ' as' the questio'." She gestures at William with her phaser. "Te' me who tha' a'ho wa'. Shad' ops? Ta' Shia'?”  
  
  
_Tal Shiar?_  He shakes his head in disbelief and disgust. If William Betancourt is Intelligence--Romulan Star Empire, Federation, or otherwise--Hikaru'll smile and kiss this bitch who killed him. “I' no' telli' you shi', an' I' no' go' a'where wi' you.”  
  
  
“No  _choi'_ , Lieuten'. Thi' phase' ha' a stun settin', too.” An unwelcome click as the phaser cycles to readiness once more with a whine so high above his hearing range, he only recognizes it as his skin crawling. “No har' feeli's, ki', an' lemme be firs' t' welco' you to Sectio' Thir'-One.”  
  
  
One moment, the still, cool hands he's holding squeeze his own. The next, before Hikaru can even draw enough breath to gasp, Betancourt's whirling around toward the foot of the bed, and standing up as he does so. Likewise, Hikaru also doesn't have time for existential fright, or even another little old-lady scream. Betancourt's taken another phaser blast to the chest, this one as blue as his eyes, though not nearly as intense. To say he shrugs it off would be to overstate matters, since he ignores the blast completely and keeps advancing on the Not-Wife. She backs away, toward the dresser, her eyes saucer-section wide.  
  
  
“A  _stun settin'_ , Missus? You don't say!” Betancourt exclaims stridently, and then with a very much  _not_  human growl, he's leaping on her, and Hikaru's looking away, not wanting to see what's coming next, because he  _knows_  what's coming next, he fucking  _knows_. Every puzzle piece he's been handed since he woke up has fallen into place, and the picture he sees is beyond clear.  
  
  
There's another, weakish blue flash from the direction of the struggle, and he closes his eyes.  
  
  
Nothing but silence.  
  
  
For a few moments, Hikaru's unable to look, let alone sit up. He's uncertain who he hopes won, but then he finds himself remembering the wry smile, and those vulnerable,  _lonely_  Pip-eyes—and the fact that though Betancourt  _could_  have threatened him, and then followed through on such threats, he never did. Hasn't, at least in Hikaru's limited experience, killed an unarmed person, though given ample chance to do so.  
  
  
“Aaay, Wi'iam . . . you o'ay?”  
  
  
No response for several seconds, and just as Hikaru's turning his head, prepared to meet the Not-Wife's bland, groggy, deadly stare, a throat clears itself. A deep, manly sort of clearing, and there's Betancourt, standing at the foot of the bed holding a hypo. He's a . . . sexy, naked, lion-faced ninja, and his mouth—well, with all those teeth it's technically a maw, but Hikaru's never been big on technicalities—stretched wide in a goofy grin.  
  
  
Those formerly vulnerable, formerly blue eyes are a bright, capricious gold.  
  
  
“'Course I am, pet. William the Bl—er, Betancourt is  _always_  okay. More or less.”  
  
  
Completely nonplussed as to how to deal with such an unexpected unknown quantity, Hikaru smiles lamely. Can't think of a single thing to stammer, and can't seem to stop blushing.  
  
  
“'S pathetic, really,” Betancourt goes on, no hint of that former vulnerability, gold eyes sparkling with age and hunger, humor and desire, and about a thousand other things. “How villains never really change. Though they did have a certain style, in my day. Here, hold still a mo'.” And before Hikaru can respond, Betancourt's on the bed again, straddling Hikaru's legs (also again) and there's a cold, painful pinch on the side of his neck that hurts like hell. But in seconds, the grogginess, the numb, useless tongue, the lethargy in his limbs is all gone. He blinks at Betancourt, and smiles for real, this time. Gets another big, goonish grin in return.  
  
  
“Better, I take it?”  
  
  
“Um, much . . . thanks,” Hikaru says softly, licking chapped lips that're on the verge of cracking. Betancourt's eyes follow the movement, then meet his own again, at once strange and familiar. Still blushing, Hikaru looks down at his hands. Then at Betancourt's, which had somehow settled on Hikaru's chest without his notice. “So. Is she dead?”  
  
  
Betancourt's toothy grin stretches practically from ear to ear. “Nah, nah. Used her little ray-gun to put her down for a nice nap. No other weapons, but I did find more of these.” He waggles the hypo, and the smile looses some luster. “Bloody black ops, government spooks turnin' espionage, murder, and recruitment—unconscionable experimentation into high sodding art. They may change names every few generations—The Initiative, Earth First, Section 31—and mission statements, but they're all the same in the end. Secret agents doin' secret evil in the name of public fucking good.”  
  
  
Hikaru watches Betancourt growl, and clamp down on the hypo enough that it starts to crack a little.  
  
  
“Okay . . . so, I dunno what my Not-Wife wanted, but I wanna know who  _you_  are.” Hikaru sits up before he's even registered the impulse, and scoots closer, his legs sliding along the smooth, slightly warm skin of Betancourt's thighs, which spread wider for him without hesitation. Gold eyes widen, but don't glance away when Hikaru reaches out to brush one prominent brow and cheekbone. “It's weird, how  _this_  face is warmer than the human one. Still cool, but definitely warmer than room temp,” he murmurs, stroking until Betancourt closes his eyes and takes a deep, unnecessary breath in. His skin is soft and smooth, despite the fierce bone structure underneath. Not porous at all, like living Human skin, and Hikaru supposes it wouldn't need to be. But Kazue's the one who comes up with detailed theories about this kind of thing. It's part of why he's so good at what he does. “I mean, who are you . . . besides a guy with no pulse, no body heat, and no metabolic processes whatsoever?”  
  
  
Betancourt makes a rumbling sound low in his chest and grabs Hikaru's hand faster than his eye can follow. Presses it to his cheek for a minute, before that other-face fades away, right under Hikaru's fingertips, leaving behind cool, human skin and faint stubble.  
  
  
Too-innocent blue eyes blink at him. “Er. Right then . . . so, uh. I'm clearly not a, er, human bloke--”  
  
  
“Clearly  _not_.” Hikaru rolls his eyes, but can't help smiling a little. Betancourt's still leaning into his touch like a man who hasn't been touched in years.  
  
  
“So. I'm a, er, previously undocumented sort of alien bloke. That can shape-shift about the face and has a terrible iron deficiency, and--”  
  
  
“You're a  _vampire_ , and possibly the worst liar I've ever met,” Hikaru says, and Betancourt's mouth drops open. It's with a small glow of pride that Hikaru realizes he's managed to totally shock a Paranormal.  
  
  
Entirely worth the attempted-kidnapping and drugging, in his opinion.   
  
  
“Vampire? Wha—wait, no. 'Course not, pet, there's no such thing, is there?” Betancourt laughs, heartily and phony, turning his face away from Hikaru's hand. “Who even jumps to bleedin'  _vam-pyres_  of your, er, primitive Earth-lore as an explanation, when I'm obviously just an alien fella. From, er . . . Gallifrey--”  
  
  
“The  _hell_  you are, Doctor Who. I know from gameface, and  _that_? Was gameface.” Hikaru crosses his arms and purses his lips when Betancourt piles on the fake innocence thick enough to go sledding on. “But even if there was such a thing as a humanoid that registered no life-signs whatsoever, I'd still know a vamp when one flashed gameface at me, buddy. Try again.”  
  
  
The gaping shouldn't be cute, but it is. Hikaru want to kiss that stupid look into a different look entirely, but they've been down  _that_  road before.  
  
  
“Oi, how'd you know about gam—I mean, you've had a long, harrowin' night, mate, and your morning wasn't much better. _Of course_ , you're imaginin' things that aren't there: vampires, werewolves, leprechauns, giant talking hamburgers—none of which exist. Especially the vampires.” Betancourt nods.  
  
  
“The hell they  _don't_. You're souled, too, right? Either that or really, really old. Maybe both—you're at least two hundred, aren't you? Your pop-culture references aren't just dated, they're carbon-dated.” Hikaru puts his fingers under Betancourt's chin and closes his mouth. “Hmm. And re-souling vampires hasn't been big since before the First Contact.”  
  
  
The stranger gives Hikaru several impressed once-overs. “Forget  _me_ , pet, who in the  _bloody_  hell are  _you_?”  
  
  
“Oh, I'm just a guy who, five squintillion miles from Earth, still can't get away from New Sunnydale, apparently.” Hikaru throws up his hands and flops down on the bed, grinning up at the ceiling till his face feels like it'll crack. “I'm from one of the few corners of the Earth that hasn't forgotten about Paranormals. My twin sister, Anza, got Chosen when we were five. My older brother's a werewolf, who became a Watcher-Historian. My younger brother came out of the womb making any object not bolted down float, and was a full warlock at eight. And that's just  _my_  generation. You wouldn't believe some of the things my parents have seen and done, or my grandmother . . . or maybe you would. The Sulus are famous and infamous on Paranormal Earth. At least, the magical ones are. I'm what you'd call . . . the ordinary one.”  
  
  
Betancourt doesn't say anything for awhile, and Hikaru closes his eyes, and waits for the past to sweep him under. It's no use dog-paddling, no use swimming for shore. He's not even sure he wants to.  
  
  
After a few minutes, a cool body is cuddling against his own. He reflexively puts one arm around Betancourt, who drags the other as far as it'll go. Of  _course,_  it feels nice to hold someone, to have a hand sweeping up and down his chest and a leg thrown over his. Of course, it feels good to know that the body he's holding is, when not moving, utterly  _still_. No beating of a heart, no breath, no warmth but Hikaru's own reflected back at him; a body that is, for all intents and purposes, dead, and yet . . . it's animated. Affectionate, pliant, lovely.  
  
  
This is—this moment--in some ways, everything HIkaru's always wanted, but. . . .  
  
  
But he already chose the life he wanted. A long time ago. And that life doesn't include having sex with walking, talking dead dudes. No matter how gorgeous and funny they are. “Thank you for helping me, and everything, but I should go . . . I'm sure there're, like, a hundred guys in this hotel alone that would kill, probably literally, to have you in their bed.”  
  
  
“There are. But I can't be arsed to move. Normally, I'm asleep at this time. Daylight-hating creature of the night, you know,” Betancourt apologizes, and Hikaru sighs when the vampire adds: "Stay."  
  
  
“I'm leaving, end of story. So stop being all funny and sweet.”  
  
  
“'M sorry. Hmm . . . bloody hell, but you're warm.”  
  
  
“Uh-huh. Yeah, I doubt you're all that sorry. And I'm going.”  
  
  
But he makes no move to do so, and Betancourt somehow cuddles closer, his fingers keeping time over Hikaru's heart. “I think you should stay.”  
  
  
“Oh, you do, do you, Mr. Secret-Agent's-Unconscious-Body-Drooling-On-His-Floor-Betancourt?”  
  
  
“Well, it could be worse. She could be dead, after all,” Betancourt notes without irony, and Hikaru grins. But only for a moment. “Anyway, she'll be out for hours. That ray-gun of hers packs a punch. A herd of rhinos fucking in a pit filled with cymbals and gravel wouldn't shift her before afternoon, I'm thinking.”  
  
  
“That's lovely imagery.”  
  
  
“I used to be a poet.”  
  
  
Hikaru  _thinks_  Betancourt is joking, but has a sneaking suspicion he's not. Isn't certain how to respond, so he just holds the vampire closer, because  _there_ 's an idea that never got anyone into trouble, right?  
  
  
But, trouble or not, Betancourt rumbles contentedly, and Hikaru wants, irrationally, illogically, quite powerfully, to keep him.  
  
  
“Like my very own electric blankie . . . always wanted one of those. For Christmas, or Kwanzaa, or somethin'. Never got one, though. Cheap fuckers,” Betancourt muses fondly, each word a cool puff of air on Hikaru's chest. “You know, I once knew someone who had a Slayer for a sister. Not her twin, but her older sister. Spent a lot of time trying to get out from under big sis's shadow.”  
  
  
“I'm not twelve; you don't have to mentor me, or whatever it is you're trying to do.”  
  
  
“And this chit I knew . . . spent years trying to be whatever her sister wasn't, and be it as big and as splashy as she possibly could, and then. . . .” Betancourt trails off, kissing Hikaru's throat, right over the jugular vein. It's not-so-unexpectedly arousing.  
  
  
Hikaru closes his eyes and finds his family waiting. The parents, siblings, cousins he's absolutely nothing like. Who love him without reservation or judgment . . . or any understanding of the  _ordinary_  little cuckoo that was dropped in their magical nest. Hikaru loves them all, but that's an easier job to do when he's not on the same planet with them. It's the only way he can avoid being eaten alive by the unfairness of it all. Not of being the only non-magical person in his family for generations, but the unfairness of having been born to a magical family at all.  
  
  
The vampire making himself at home in Hikaru's arms just goes to show, that when he thinks he's finally clawed his way off Paranormal Earth and made his own way, his own life, his own personal success without help from his family magic or his family name . . . it pulls him right the fuck back in.  
  
  
And yet, though he resents this resurgence of the Paranormal in his life, he can't deny that it _saved_ his life. That  _Betancourt_  saved his life, and . . . he definitely doesn't resent Betancourt.  
  
  
“Did she ever? Get out from her sister's shadow?”  
  
  
“Yep.” Betancourt kisses his chest tenderly, repeatedly. “She found her own way. Became a Watcher, in her time. But only after she accepted that it was okay to be . . . the ordinary one. That it's what made her so extraordinary, and so  _necessary_.”  
  
  
“Huh. That makes the sense that's non. You know that, right?”  
  
  
“Bugger.” Betancourt lays his head on Hikaru's shoulder. “I may have got it mixed up, a bit. Been two centuries, now, since they all . . . since the people I loved passed on. She was the last to go, and after her I just . . . went a bit mad, for awhile. M' memory's not what it used to be.”  
  
  
Hikaru supposes he'd be a little mad, too, outliving everything he ever knew—even, probably, other vampires. He tightens his arm around Betancourt and runs his fingers up and down the cool, satin-soft skin of shoulder and arm.  
  
  
“Oh . . . Sulu, may I touch you?”  
  
  
That hopeful whisper again. Hikaru doesn't even have to open his eyes to know he's being watched by eyes as melancholy and honest as they can be ancient and hungry. Doesn't have to guess what Betancourt means by  _touch_. He swallows, thinking that a smart man might be comm'ing a peacekeeper, or at least his own commanding officer, right about now.  
  
  
“Yeah, okay. Um . . .  _please_?”  
  
  
Which is worth a kiss so demanding and long, Hikaru's lungs start to think he's been dumped out an airlock.  
  
  
Never has he been more glad that he's not an especially smart man.  
  
  
Betancourt's hand on him doesn't just feel good, it feels like what he's been waiting forever to have. Like he won some lottery he wasn't even aware he was in the drawing for--a feeling that, if one ignores the initial, manly squeak of bestartlement, increases tenfold when Betancourt's hand disappears then reappears wetter and colder.  
  
  
“Sorry 'bout the chill.” He strokes hard and fast, and the lube warms quickly enough. “Never did earn m' merit badge for warmin' anything with body lack-of-heat.”  
  
  
Hikaru chuckles breathlessly. “Are you an undead warlock? Did you magic that up?”  
  
  
“Nah, had it stashed under one of these bloody pillows. Never got my merit badge, but I'm  _always_  prepared.” Betancourt nips the spot just over Hikaru's heart—almost hard enough to draw blood. Just the thought of his blood being being drawn sends Hikaru's brain to someplace crazy and primitive. Someplace he hasn't been in years, someplace he swore never to go back to. The place where he can only have this intensity if he's the ordinary, non-magical nobody.  
  
  
“May I ask your name?” More puffs of breath, on his lips this time, and Hikaru angles his head up just a bit, so that when he throws the past eight years away, it's more a kiss than a betrayal of himself.  
  
  
“Sulu's my last name . . . Hikaru's my first.”  
  
  
“ _Hikaru_ ,” Betancourt says, making it more of a kiss than Hikaru ever could, as if there could never be anything  _ordinary_  about the man who wears it. Then he licks his lips, also licking Hikaru's in the process. “May I kiss you again, Hikaru Sulu?”  
  
  
“Ye- _mmph!_ ”  
  
  
Betancourt's kisses range from frantic to slow, tender to teasing, hard to feather-light, and sometimes a combination of all these things. But it's fairly short order before Hikaru's encouraging Betancourt to straddle him again—and he does, without breaking the kiss. In fact, these kisses doesn't get broken till Betancourt slithers atop Hikaru and pretty much impales himself on Hikaru's cock. They both hiss, though one of those hisses is more of a snickering growl. Hikaru's eyes fly open, and all he sees is the beige-and-cream of the ceiling, and faint, dancing shadows made by sunlight and trees.  
  
  
“Oh, God. Oh,  _God_ ,” he keeps gasping as Betancourt kisses him hard and fast before pulling off him completely and sitting back down hard enough that Hikaru's body feels the impact.  _This_ , is what he's put aside for eight years, along with the 'Dale, and his badge of ordinariness. He's gone almost a decade without a cold, perfect, immutable, indestructible,  _silent_  and serenely  _still_  body to hold, to fuck, to crawl inside, to worship.  
  
  
He has gone  _without_  for so very long.  
  
  
“. . . had aught to do with the sheer bloody delight that is your cock, I shall have to send Him a thank you note in my best Copperplate,” Betancourt says thoughtfully, almost primly, and Hikaru neither knows nor cares whether or not he's joking. He's too busy rolling them over, and pushing Betancourt's legs up and out and  _yes_. Yes, yes, abso-fucking-lutely  _yes_. Hikaru's no virgin, hasn't been since he was fourteen. He's no stranger to sex with a Paranormal—growing up on the periodically reopening Hellmouth, it's unavoidable; though losing one's virginity to a poltergeist is kinda weird, even for the 'Dale, and so is exclusively dating dead or mostly-dead guys till joining Starfleet—but he's never felt anything like this urgent burning in his blood, this need to  _have_  as much of William Betancourt as he can get.  
  
  
And Hikaru means to have all of him, though he wonders how much of this thrill and desire is real, and how much is just his eyes being bigger than his stomach.  
  
  
“Fuck, this is  _so_  teenage-rebellious-phase!” he gasps, laughing, and Betancourt's blue-gold eyes open and light on him. They're lust-fogged and incredibly  _old_ , and Hikaru feels like an idiot, but his mind, like his body, is on autopilot, and whatever he thinks is coming right out of his mouth. “This whole . . . fucking a Paranormal thing. I—I dated a vampire in high school, and it got too intense, too quick, and then my sister  _hadda_  step in, and our parents found out, and . . . it was a nightmare, especially after he—oh, crap. If you're thinking of doing something stupid, like claiming me, or trying to turn me--”  
  
  
Betancourt smiles and angles his body just so. Hikaru slides deeper on his next thrust, and Betancourt hisses again, biting his lip nearly bloody. “Please. Just like that. Don't stop.”  
  
  
“God, I probably  _should_ \--”  
  
  
“But you don't  _want_  to.  _I_  don't want you to,” Betancourt murmurs, holding that angle while, impossibly, arching up to kiss Hikaru's collarbone. Then his tongue flicks lightly against Hikaru's throat, and across his neck toward his ear in slow circles, as if searching for something.  
  
  
The tongue stops when Hikaru shivers and moans, his slow, hard, steady thrusts having lost all semblance of control. “Ah,  _I see_ , said the blind man. This where he put it, then?” More pressure with the tip of his tongue, and Hikaru's fighting not to come. “Silly fledge--can barely taste his claim, but oh, I can feel what it does to you. I can feel how badly you need to  _belong_  to someone again.”  
  
  
Hikaru tries to summon a response, any response other than pulling Betancourt upright, into his lap and pressing their faces together. No matter the position, the angle, the strain, Betancourt's weight feels  _right_  on him. Like an anchor he hadn't realized he needed. “Lemme see it? Lemme see your face?” he asks, kissing nose, lips, chin, cheek, anywhere he can reach.  
  
  
Blue eyes search his own, gold still flickering in them, till all there  _is_  is gold, and that fierce, forbidden, beautiful face. The ridges Hikaru wants to kiss and nuzzle, the fangs he wants to bloody his tongue against. . . .  
  
  
“Your heart's beatin' like it's runnin' a race. Tryin' to outrun the devil. Or a demon,” Betancourt says, grinning big and just a flash of fangs has Hikaru moaning and tilting his head back. Betancourt swears, and kisses his throat, nipping at the skin and bearing down on Hikaru's cock till he's shaking and begging wordlessly. “I can smell need rising off your skin like musk. Can taste it on the air, and if you want, yes. I'll show you what a  _real_  claim is, Hikaru Sulu . . . _wouldn't_  you like me to show you?  _Claim_  you?”  
  
  
“We can't . . . it'd be illogic—oh,  _fuck_!” That sharp, shivery sensation's been replaced by the bright, needles-pain of Betancourt's fangs sliding into him like a hot knife through butter. Hikaru's body is tense and taut, eyes closed and head thrown back as he tries to say  _no_  or maybe  _yes_ , and the words get trapped behind the bloody wrist pressed to his lips. By agecopper _magic_ trickling into his mouth and down his throat, both quenching and intensifying a thirst Hikaru had thought buried. But his entire body is sitting up and taking notice, every cell exhaling a weary  _at last_.  
  
  
Then he's gasping, and coming, his body thrusting without rhythm or sense into Betancourt's, trying for as deep as he can get before he's utterly spent, his body one big pleasure receiver that knows no other wavelength. His only tether to his reason is the steady pull of blood from his body—for forever, it feels like. Like . . . maybe William Betancourt  _isn't_  such a decent guy, for a vampire. Like maybe Hikaru didn't pay as much attention at Chosen U. as he'd thought. . . .  
  
  
Then Betancourt's fangs are pulling out slowly, slowly, s l o w l y; painfully so, and this (according to Anza's Watcher, Butterfield) is to keep the wound from healing neatly or quickly. A fact Hikaru had known and encouraged the first time a vampire claimed him. But now he also knows what's at stake. He knows what could happen to them both as a result of thinking with their dicks. It's a worry that can't, however, withstand the vise-like clamp of Betancourt's body as he roars into Hikaru's shoulder, his cock pressed between them. It's warmed by friction but still shoots cool on their stomachs and chests.  
  
  
Hikaru groans and aches as his tired body tries to come again. But he keeps Betancourt upright with rubbery arms. Holds him close till he stops panting and shaking, and goes utterly limp. Then Hikaru shifts them both a little, pulls out carefully, and lays them both down. Betancourt immediately curls up on his chest, one leg thrown over him Hikaru's. His body is warm and flushed from sex, from blood, though the tip of his nose is still cool on the overheated skin near the claim mark.  
  
  
“No one's worn my claim in longer'n I c'n remember.” The cool nose moves a little lower, and Betancourt inhales deeply, kissing the claim mark, then licking and nipping at it. Hikaru's entire being explodes in a hot, heady, happy fireworks show. He feels wanted, needed, protected, strong, purposeful and . . .  _owned_ , in ways that are sweet and sexy, dirty and disturbing. In short: he feels  _completed_. “I don't think it's ever looked s' good.”  
  
  
Which shouldn't warm him, make him feel flattered, but it does. And that's just one more drop of insane in the bucket that is Hikaru's life today. He looks up at the ceiling again. Reflects that he might be doing that a lot, in the future. “Guess this means you're my Master, now.”  
  
  
Betancourt sighs. “I--look, I won't  _force_  you to stay, if what you want is to leave. I know you're in Starfleet, and your type takes that kind of commitment very, very seriously,” he says softly, finally leaving the claim alone, and settling next to Hikaru--not cuddling against, but still touching all along their arms. “You know as well as I do that even a Master's claim'll fade if it isn't reinforced periodically.”  
  
  
Fade, but never quite go away. Not till someone makes a stronger claim, anyway, and . . . Hikaru doesn't  _want_  someone to make a stronger claim. Doesn't want the claim to go away.  
  
  
He wants Betancourt. In a way that's powerful, and completely unreasoning.  
  
  
Hikaru closes his eyes and sighs. Takes Betancourt's hand and pulls it up to his face for a good look. It's cool and heavy, and the life-line is long, but broken at the very beginning. Even a shmoe like him can read a sign that obvious. Hikaru's own hand is slightly smaller, and his life-line is bisected and broken in several places.  
  
  
He squeezes Betancourt's hand and pulls it to his lips. Kisses it. “No forcing. That's good to know. One less Talk we'll have to have down the connubial road. So. We're sorta married, now, and I have no idea how a Starfleet lieutenant and a vampire carry on  _staying_  sorta-married without claims fading and all the long-distance stuff, but . . . I'd like to try, if that sounds like something you'd wa--”  
  
  
Suddenly, Hikaru's flat on his back and Betancourt's sprawled on top of him, heavy and cool, wriggling around like a crazy fish. His grin is unhinged . . . but happy. Pretty—and no less so because of the blinked back tears in his eyes. ”Gave me that bloody ugly midget gargoyle last night, didn't you? So, I bloody well want [Jamaharon](http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Jamaharon).”  
  
  
“Jamaha Ron? But I don't even  _know_  Ro—oh, jeez!” Betancourt applies tongue and teeth to the claim again, this time like a man on a mission. Hikaru shivers and shakes and  _wants_  in a very familiar way, only . . .  _more_. Pain morphs into pleasure, and he keens as his body tries, impossibly, ridiculously, to get hard again. He's exhausted and sensitive, like,  _ow_ , but he wants to get hard again for Betancourt. Because maybe this is the fresh claim talking, but Hikaru . . . would almost rather die than deny him anything.  
  
  
No . . . it wasn't like this in high school. Wasn't  _anything_  like this with Jeremy.  
  
  
“Seriously, you're hot and beautiful, but  _nuts_  if you think I'll be getting hard again so— _ohholyfuck_!”  
  
  
“Mm . . . I  _love_  your voice, Hikaru, but do stop talking, now,” Betancourt murmurs, his tongue circling each puncture until Hikaru's shaking and spazzing.  
  
  
“Betancourt--”  
  
  
“William,” he corrects softly, licking and nuzzling the claim until it hurts like the best thing ever, and Hikaru's gasping and bucking up; hard, and ready to do something about it. “And I said  _hush_.”  
  
  
So, Hikaru hushes, and even though it's exquisitely painful, he lets William suck on the claim till he's on the verge of coming and hard enough to be ridden. And William does just that, his head bowed like a penitent as he raises and lowers himself with his hands braced on Hikaru's chest, doing crazyimpossibleohmygodwonderful things with his muscles.  
  
  
He's beautiful like this, clothed in shadows and filtered sunlight, his body a lovely, non-living sculpture that's been reanimated and made nimble for Hikaru's pleasure. And oh, such pleasure he's taking from the simple, not-at-all simple fact of William's existence.  
  
  
“Not gonna last much longer,” he grits out, hands bruising-tight on William's hips. He closes his eyes and imagines solving the kind of non-linear equations that haven't given Pavel trouble since he was seven. Imagines how it felt to take the Kobayashi-Maru five years ago, a year before Kirk did. Normally, nothing's more of a boner-slayer to Hikaru than failure, especially when it's at something Kirk's good at. But even  _that_  colossal tank is no match for William Betancourt. Hikaru's fingers are now biting deep enough into pale, muscular thighs to have broken skin, though they haven't. “Gonna come. Any second. Fuckyou'resotight!”  
  
  
“Mmhm.” Cool, soft lips brush his own. “Let go, love. 'S the good thing about a claim. I can get you hard as often as I want. Though in my experience, after the fifth consecutive time, it's diminishing returns. Figuratively speaking, of course. Nothin' diminishing about  _your_  returns,” he adds smugly. Hikaru groans, imagining his entire consciousness being turned inside out four more times in rapid succession, and his body spasms in a way that's not entirely pleasant.  
  
  
“God, I want you so much, but  _please_  not five times in a row . . .”  
  
  
William chuckles, does an entirely new (to Hikaru) muscle-y thing. Hikaru's eyes try their best to roll back into his head. Which is of the good, since he's always wondered just what color his brain was.  
  
  
“Not five times if you don't want, but . . . how's three sound?”  
  
  
“ _Three_? I'll be down to bone marrow and toenail clipp--” but William's laughing and kissing him hard. He's stopped that furious bouncing up and down on Hikaru's cock and is simply doing the crazyimpossibleohmygodwonderful things with his muscles, and Two? Is imminent. Is so close, Hikaru wraps his arms around William and holds him tight, tight, tight. Slides his hands down to William's ass and thrusts as hard as he can in this position, his brain already on its merry way to short circuit-land, when suddenly the air is redolent with a familiar, slightly burnt smell, like herbs, incense and ozone.  
  
  
“Aw,  _grosstastic_! I'm now scarred for  _life_. The next six lives, at least!” A lazy, nasally tenor declares, and William breaks the kiss with the meanest growl Hikaru's ever heard, gameface on and ready as they both look over his shoulder.  
  
  
Standing at the foot of the bed, scowl cast determinedly downward, probably at the unconscious agent, is a slightly chunky, white-haired young guy in a vintage Lakers t-shirt, camo-colored jeans, and a cowled, unbuttoned, lavender robe--covered in glittery pink hearts, orange stars, yellow moons, green clovers, blue diamonds, purple horseshoes,  _and_  red balloons--and wearing a matching conical hat that's at least two feet tall, and drooping.  
  
  
“Scarred! No good deed goes unpunished,” laments Kei Sulu, the youngest, most powerful practicing warlock in the world.  
  
  
Well, it's probably “in the galaxy.” Indeed, Hikaru's hard-on? Is magically disappearing. And William's . . . wow, really growling now, off of Hikaru and turning to face the foot of the bed in the blink of an eye. His body is thrumming like he's about to pounce, and very muscle in his back and shoulders is tense. But still so touchable. So . . . lickable.  
  
  
_Down, boy,_  Hikaru tells his body, and puts his hands on William's shoulders blades, leaning forward to kiss the back of his neck. “Calm down. He's my brother. He's not a threat,” he says as soothingly as he knows how, which probably isn't very, considering the muscles under his hand still feel like stone and William's snickering growl is definitely louder. “He's cool, he's not gonna hurt us--”  
  
  
"Hah, the day's still young, buttfaces—oh-ho-ho! Don't you growl at  _me_ , sweet-cheeks, or I'll tuck you into pocket dimension faster than you can say  _O-negative_ , and let you mellow some," Kei warns, and that ozone smell intensifies. Hikaru can feel Kei's magic dancing along his skin like angry fireflies, and clearly so can William, because he's shifting forward like he's about to leap again. “Or maybe I'll turn ya into an undead lima bea--”  
  
  
“Damnit, Kei, stop being a brat or--or I'll fucking tell Nana!”  
  
  
At this, Kei actually pales. And, for a wonder, shuts up.  
  
  
Hikaru yanks hard on William's arms, tumbling them back to the bed. He lays there, for a moment remembering the last time William fell on him, less than an hour ago, and how it'd felt to think he was for-keeps-dead. Then he's holding on with all his strength, kissing the side of William's face.  
  
  
“It's okay,” he promises, and keeps promising till that thrumming-stone tension coiled in his arms relaxes somewhat, and William sighs. Tucks his face into Hikaru's neck, breathing against the claim, and though it feels good, it's not so much a sexy-good as . . . some other kind of good, strange, yet half-familiar.  
  
  
From the foot of the bed, Kei clears his throat. “Uh . . . guys? I feel slightly uncomfortable with all the nudity, and the amount of snuggling getting had. . . .”  
  
  
“Everything I've ever cared about, I've lost,” William says roughly, the weariness of lifetimes making his voice brittle. “What I don't lose gets taken away, and . . . I just can't seem to hold on to anything. That's why I let everything go, and went all . . . wobbly, for awhile. Bein' crazy's easier than bein' alone.”  
  
  
Hikaru looks down into William's eyes. Is sucked into those quicksand-blue depths and doesn't bother fighting it. He knows a lost cause when he looks in the mirror. “You don't have to worry about that, anymore.”  
  
  
A sad disbelieving smile, and the quicksand depths are shuttered by pale lids. “I just  _got_  you, Hikaru Sulu, and they're already trying to take you from me. Eventually, they'll win.”  
  
  
“Well, if they get through you, they'll still have  _me_  to deal with, and I'm no vampire, but . . . gimme a blade, any blade, and I'm a pretty badass motherfucker.”  
  
  
“Oh, Lord.” William laughs, and opens his eyes. That quicksand look is mostly gone, and he sits up enough to kiss Hikaru just a wee bit silly. “You're bloody adorable.” More kisses that edge away from sweet, to decidedly dirty. Especially considering where William's hands are wandering to.  
  
  
“Hey—hey, I'm still here, you know! Impressionable heterosexual teen!”  
  
  
The dirty kisses and touches turn into frustrated ones, and William grumbles. “So, I could kill him, if you want.”  
  
  
“Weeeelllll . . . I appreciate the thought, but no. My parents are kinda fond of him, for some reason. They'd pout.” Hikaru steals another kiss then sits up, grabbing another largish throw and covering William's lower half and his own. Kei is squinting unhappily at the unconscious agent again. “Now, what are you doing here?”  
  
  
“Livin' the dream, Hikaru. Livin' the dream. Yeesh. Black Ops, here, looks a little like old lady Taylor. You know, if old lady Taylor had wardrobe by The Matrix,” he adds, nudging the Not-Wife much the way William had, only gingerly. He's always fanatical about keeping his sneakers clean. “What happened? Some kinda energy-weapon?”  
  
  
“Phaser, set to low stun.”

 

Kei grunts, scowling harder, and the magical crackle in the air intensifies as he clenches and releases his hands. He's visibly not I-told-you-so-ing about the absolute craziness of a  _Sulu_  joining Starfleet. Which Hikaru appreciates. “She drugged me and tried to kidnap me last night. Then tried again, this morning.”  
  
  
“Persistence . . . I like that in a would-be kidnapper. Why you?”  
  
  
The Not-Wife had implied that she was after him at the behest of '[Section 31](http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Section_31)', whatever that is, but Hikaru sees no sense in dragging his well-meaning, but sledgehammer subtle little brother into it. “Dunno. Won't know till I notify my captain, and the Risan authorities, and they question her.”  
  
  
Kei takes a deep breath and looks up at Hikaru. There's an eight year age difference between them, but Kei still looks older. “I could maybe—you know. . . .” he makes a waggly-fingered motion near his temples. Sort of like weird interpretive dance, and Hikaru snorts.  
  
  
“Thanks, but no. I think we should let the proper authorities be the ones to perform jazz-hands on her, Kei.”  
  
  
“Bro, don't discount the power of the jazz-hands. Or the hand-jive.” Kei, weirdo that he is, does a brief, more than passable hand-jive, then looks sulky again. Aims his eyes at the ceiling this time and strokes his fake beard thoughtfully. “Okay, no whammy. Whatever. But I can at least work on some special wards once I get back home, 'port some talismans on to you. Some things to keep you off unfriendly radar and fuck up unfriendly plans. I'll brainstorm with the coven, we'll cauldron up some razzmatazz for ya . . . ick, her aura's is making my head hurt and my sinuses clog up. She's got caked-on bad karma, like, whuh- _hoa_. I'm gonna have to steam-clean my sneakers. Ugh.” That sulk turns genuinely unhappy, and about more than his sneakers. That kind of look doesn't sit well on him. At nineteen, he's too young to have the cares he's carried since he was six. “So. Hikaru. Vampire-Hikaru's-Fucking. Is my aid still required, or do you two have this sitch squared away, with the awesome power of your new-found love?”  
  
  
“Asshole.” Tempting though it is to ask Kei to banish this agent person to some other plane of existence. A really sucky one, like one that's nothing but shrimp. Or one where everyone has horrible beards and is all  _grrr_. “Yeah, we're squared.”  
  
  
“You sure, Cap'n Starfleet? I mean, I could summon you a guard dog, or something.  _Anything_ ,” Kei prods.  
  
  
There was a time that such blatant lack of confidence in Hikaru's ability to take care of himself--and from the people who know him best--really rankled. That time has not passed, and life is once more colored in deep, bitter red, like it sometimes was when he was a kid. Even though he knows, deep down, Kei's concern is based in fear of loss, not lack of confidence, he still can't help but feel like that same useless,  _un-special_  Sulu that took martial arts classes and fencing lessons, just to have something he was at last good at. Who was varsity track, swimming, and fencing, and top ten in his class just to prove to everyone, himself included, that the nobody-Sulu, was indeed somebody.  
  
  
The kid who, at ten, badgered drunk Uncle Masa into teaching him how to fly antique crop-dusters and barn-stormers. The sixteen year old who went courting death and/or damnation in a cemetery, and wound up claimed. Wound up a widower, that same year, and still,  _still_  hadn't figured out who he was, when . . . the ubiquitous Starfleet recruitment ads started making sense.  
  
  
It's as if he's that kid again, and the past eight years didn't happen.  
  
  
“Don't, love,” William murmurs, sitting up to wrap his arms around Hikaru's shoulders, leaning their heads together. “It's not because he thinks you can't protect yourself, but because the people who love you can't bear to risk losing you, no matter how small that risk . . . it's called over-protectiveness. Something I understand a little bit about.”  
  
  
Hikaru smiles mirthlessly. “Or maybe I'm just the Zeppo of the Sulu Sibs. Or the Shemp, I guess, if you prefer the Stooges-- _do you_  prefer the Stooges, Will? Because I can overlook some major flaws in a spouse, but I dunno if-- _ack_! What's wrong?” he chokes out, when that loose embrace becomes a  _FUCKCAN'TBREATHE_  clinch, with William muttering and kissing him. Laughing, too.  
  
  
“Wow. So pretty, yet . . . so  _crazy_ ,” Kei intones with horrified fascination, but makes no move to help. Hikaru takes a brief break from pulling at William's arms to give his little brother the finger. Both barrels.  
  
  
Finally, William makes a sound like a cut-off sob, and lets go, but just enough for oxygen to get in, not for Hikaru to get out.  
  
  
“I very much prefer the Marx Brothers, thanks.  _Especially Zeppo_ ,” William adds, still laughing, clutching, and even sniffling a little. But that's definitely crazy-talk, since, almost everyone's favorite is Groucho. “Bloody hell, she said you'd come back if I waited long enough, and had faith, and I waited, love. I waited till even my Dark Princess was dust and nothing made sense, and everything  _changed_  . . . but you're  _here_! My beloved . . . you're  _here_!”  
  
  
If there's anything to say to that that isn't:  _whuh-huh?_  Hikaru doesn't know what it is. All he knows is, it has to be down to the claim that his burgeoning (yet improbably  _powerful_ ) feelings for William are strong enough that this display mystifies, but doesn't frighten him. In a matter of hours, a completely random, naked, crazy,  _beautiful_  vampire has wormed his way deep under Hikaru's kevlar-defenses, and Hikaru, for one, can't figure out how.  
  
  
Though William is currently snaking his hand under the throw and giving Hikaru some delightfully teasing pulls, and yeah . . . that may have something to do with the breaching of Hikaru's defenses.  
  
  
Blushing, but brazening it out—it never does to give Kei any kind of ammunition, though he may genuinely be too traumatized to ever refer to this visit again--Hikaru smacks at William's hand through the material, misses, and hits his dick. Which really doesn't help with the not getting aroused.  
  
  
And Kei is such a fetching shade of green. Hikaru's chooses to think of this as payback for all the magical tricks Kei used to play on him when they were younger. Turnabout is of the good, and distraction from the sexy, completely uninhibited vampire in his bed is even bett--  
  
  
William chuckles in his ear, low and  _very_  dirty. His cock-teasing hand joins its mate on Hikaru's chest. “I've missed you so, pet.” A viciously playful bite to his earlobe. “Not gonna let you out of bed for a  _month_. Gonna take you in every way and position imaginable, and I'm gonna wear. You.  _Out_.”  
  
  
“Oooh-kay! Well. This's all boss-sauce, but I'm hella sick of holding a convo while pretending I did  _not_  'port in on my big brother corn-holing a dead guy. Uh, out of curiosity, are dead guys, like, a fetish for you, or . . . wait, you know what? Never mind. Time for Kei to get his atoms back to the homestead so he can clean his sneakers, and his chi. Smell ya later.” That ozone and herbs scent gets stronger once again, and reality starts getting that weird, bubble-y look, like heated polymer.  
  
  
“Wait!” Hikaru sits up, ignoring William's indignant squawk, but not the arms wrapping around his waist a second later, lips pressing wet kisses to his shoulders. It's incredibly distracting, but Kei, at least, for once, is doing what he's asked: staying put. Though he looks like he wishes the hotel floor would open, and swallow him whole.  
  
  
“H-how'd you know I needed h-help? Did you or Nana put some kinda new tracking spell on me that I don't know about?”  
  
  
Kei draws himself up to his full five feet, seven inches and flings a trailer of silvery scarf over his shoulder. Adjusts his beard. “Are you  _kidding_  me? The way  _you_  lit up the astral plane wishing for help? Who needs spell-work? You know I'm like, tuned in to your signal, anyway. It just took a little while to reach me. And then it took awhile for me to reach  _you_. I hadda teleport out right in the middle of my big scene in the coven's production of  _Goblet of Fire! The Musical!_ \--by the way, you're welcome for all the miracle—but I'm here, if a little late. And I'm actually running low on juice, so I need to go before I can't, 'kay? You: Souled-vamp walking.” He points his finger at William, who doesn't even look up, doesn't stop his exploration and appreciation of Hikaru's shoulders. Kei rolls his eyes and flaps his hand. “I'd tell you not to hurt him, or I'd banish you to a hell-dimension, but I'm sure you've heard  _that_  before. And you'll be hearing it again from my Nana. And my other brother. And my parents. And my sister, who  _is_  a Slayer, I should mention. The first to be Chosen in over a century, yadda-yadda-yadda. Bottom line? Trust me: when we Sulus say hell-dimension, we mean the helliest.  _Quor'toth-style_ , bitch."  
  
  
Hikaru shakes his head. Wonders why, after he and Anza, his parents had to go and have another child. "Was that really necessary?"  
  
  
"Necessary  _and_  satisfying. Alright, kids, we've covered the help, the psychic twinkle, the amazing selflessness of Kei the Magnificent, the shovel-speech—okay, that should do it. I  _really_ need to am-scray, before I can't. I'll tell the fam you and vamp-hubby both said 'whaddup, bitches.'”  
  
  
“ _Do not_  tell them we said that.”  
  
  
“Hmm, what? Sorry, bro, can't hear you over all the teleporting. . . .” Kei says in a fake distance-voice, making ear-plugging motions just before reality warps and bends . . . then he's gone, leaving behind that  _magic_  smell Hikaru's surprised to have missed.  
  
  
_Un_ surprisingly, with the exit of his little brother, Hikaru's hard-on? Is both  _hard_  and  _on_.  
  
  
“See what kinda family you bit into? Let that be a lesson to you.” Hikaru bears William down to the bed with all his weight, finding the hardness he expects and grinding happily against it.  _Not_ finding that over-the-top leer he expected. William responds to the grinding, of course. Duh, vampire. But he's got the quicksand eyes, again.  
  
  
Well, not quite. Deep enough to drown in, yes, but not sad.  _Glowing with happiness_  might be a more apt description, and Hikaru's pretty certain he's that reason.  
  
  
“You're staring at me,” he says, kissing William in an effort to distract—or at least divert. But apparently two can play that game, because William's legs not only wrap around him, but he uses that  _so_  unfair vamp-strength to roll them over again, pinning Hikaru's hands above his head, exerting not even a small fraction of effort to keep them that way. Then he takes his time seemingly memorizing every bit of Hikaru he can see at such a close angle.  
  
  
“Is it so odd that  _I_  find  _you_  beautiful, then? That I like to look at you?” William asks when when Hikaru starts to squirm, and test the grip on his wrists. William clamps down a little tighter—not remotely the limits of his strength, but it's about the limit of Hikaru's. It's as dizzying as it was at sixteen, knowing that there's a hold that he can't break through main-force or cleverness.  
  
  
“I dunno. Maybe. Do you like it when I struggle, or do you prefer me docile?” he counters, and there's that leer . . . but still a bit moony and fond. “I  _can_  be both . . . for the right vampire.”  
  
  
“I love everything about you, pet. I have for a very long time.” For a moment, that grip is almost wrist-crushing tight, then it's gone before Hikaru can decide whether he's more alarmed or turned on. Then gentle, careful fingers are tracing lips, nose, and cheekbone. Following smile lines and crows feet wonderingly, even as the leer smooths away into something solemn, yet joyful. “You don't look a  _bloody_  thing like you used to, but your eyes . . . it's  _you_  in there, looking out at me, and laughing at me for being such a big girl's blouse.”  
  
  
Hikaru's eyebrows shoot up. “It's a good thing I like 'em crazy, dead, and hot. You're like, the jackpot for all three.”  
  
  
William's expression changes from earnest to wry. “I suppose you think the only thing that drew us together was that bloody Moon Festival, a  _horga'hn_ , a hankerin' for  _Jamaharon_ , and fabulous taste in blokes?”  
  
  
“Well . . . not  _only_  those things. There's also the matter of the operative who tried to abduct me. Not to mention whatever rufees she slipped me to make me all uninhibited and stupid, and okay, let's pretend I have a filter between my mouth and my brain, and rewind the conversation,” he says when William looks away. Then he reflects that his strength isn't at all talking, or speaking, or words, or any form of communication that doesn't involve sex and/or swordplay. “I—sorry. I didn't mean that the way it sounded--”  
  
  
“I'm not a wife that you have to apologize to every time you say something thoughtless and hurtful.” William's eyes are all narrowed and still staring off toward the window. He's smiling again, but it's not exactly a happy one. “I'd just forgotten what a little sod you could be, sometimes.”  
  
  
Before Hikaru even registers the impulse, he's toppled William off of him with a sharp strike to the throat. He sits up and scoots to the front of the bed, meaning to grab his clothes and . . . walk. Not away, and not forever, just . . . walk, till his mind is still again. Till he's  _himself_  again. But vampire speed puts him flat on his back before his foot can more than touch the floor, inches from the kidnapper's slack face. When William straddles him, this time it's his chest, and Hikaru can barely breathe, let alone budge him. Eyes as hard as blue stone watch his struggles slow, then peter out futilely.  
  
  
"Get the hell off me."  
  
  
"Make me."  
  
  
“Look, you said you wouldn't force me to stay if I wanted to leave,” Hikaru accuses in a voice as hard as William's eyes.  
  
  
“Is that how you think this works, then, pet? We say mean things to each other and one of us walks out before it's sorted? Is that how it worked with Mr. What's-His-Face whose claim I jumped?”  
  
  
Hikaru doesn't dignify that with an answer, simply closes his eyes and goes limp, and resigns himself to staying that way till William gets tired of restraining him. Thinks about all the ways one could injure, incapacitate, and even kill a man who's using straddling as a method of restraint. Of course, those methods only work on living men with normal or slightly above pain tolerance, and normal recovery time.  
  
  
Some of those methods work on fledglings—briefly. Hikaru's never met a Master before today, but he doubts they'd do anything but piss William off. More.  
  
  
Though he supposes there's no such thing as being good at  _too many_  things.  
  
  
“Oh, fuck me. I . . . Christ, we're not either of us good at this anymore. Not that we ever were, really—lots of passion and pride, but not a dram of common sense or communication skills between the two of us.” A tired little laugh with an edge of sadness and madness to it that makes Hikaru open his eyes. William's got his head in his hands, shaking it and muttering. “Bloody mess everything up. Can't ever get it right, even with you. I'm sorry, Xander. I'm sorry.”  
  
  
“ _What_  did you call me?” Hikaru demands, though he'd heard.  _Xander_ , William'd said . . . it's not Hikaru's name, obviously, but a familiar one. As well it should be, since half the guys in SoCal are probably named  _Xander_. Not  _Alex_ -ander, just  _Xander_.  
  
  
It's really the stupidest name Hikaru's ever heard. And he's got a cousin in Oxnard named  _Travis-Anne_.  
  
  
The claim is really starting to throb, like a headache, and he's more than a little pissed. Quite suddenly, he hates that fucking name. Hates that scared, hopeful look in William's too-shiny eyes. Eyes that probably aren't even seeing  _Hikaru_ , but seeing some guy who's been dead longer than Hikaru's even been alive.  
  
  
Some guy named fucking  _Xander_ , who'd no doubt worn William's claim, once upon a lifetime.  
  
  
"Look. My name's not  _Xander_ , okay? I mean, you're close . . . it's Hikaru. Heee-KAR-roo. Similar in sound and spelling to  _Xander_ , only . . . not." Though he feels justified saying it, the way William's face falls gives him no joy whatsoever, and he reminds himself that there's a reason someone who could potentially live forever would see the faces of lost loved ones everywhere. That whatever's going on in William's head right now deserves patience and kindness, not defensive cruelty. “I—I'm sorry you lost your lover, and sorry that time . . . hasn't blunted the pain of that. I'm sorry that you've been alone for so long, and maybe I'm even a little sorry that I'm  _not_  this guy you've been carrying a torch for. But--” Hikaru places his hands on William's thighs. Cool, heavy hands cover his and squeeze gently. “I'm not him. I'm not someone you once lost, I'm someone you  _have_.  
  
  
“I'm completely chill with you being crazy. In fact, it's kind of a turn-on. But I need you to be sane enough to realize that  _I'm_  the one you're with. I need you to be with  _me_ , William . . . not with someone else. Okay?”  
  
  
Nothing. No response. Hikaru goes cold all over, even the damn claim, and he turns his hands in William's, squeezing them back till sad, weary eyes meet his own.  
  
  
It'd be so easy to go along, probably wouldn't come to anything, but . . . Hikaru's spent the only lifetime he'll get trying to find out who he is. He's not going to give himself up, or hide himself for anyone. Even William.  
  
  
“Sweetheart, can you do that for me? Please?”  
  
  
Taking a deep, deep breath that he doesn't let out, William smiles. It's small, but a smile. And more than big enough to make the claim throb harder, little bolts of pain and pleasure that are increasing steadily. If not for William keeping him pinned, Hikaru would have him on his stomach, and be doing his damnedest fuck this memory-man out of mind completely and forever. Out of their claim.  
  
  
“Of course, I can do that, love.” That smile widens, becomes dazzling, and Hikaru knows his own smile has gone all goofy and stupid, and William would have to be an idiot not to notice how well he's got Hikaru wrapped around his finger. “Perhaps it's . . . premature of me to say so, but I'd do anything to be with you.  _Hikar--”_  
  
  
Just then the door to the room beeps, like it's being unlocked, and a second later it opens. In rushes a three-person security team from the Enterprise, led by Commander Spock, and followed by none other than four of the local constabulary. Everyone looks tense and wary, and there isn't a holstered phaser among the lot of them.  
  
  
“Oh, shit,” Hikaru groans, closing his eyes and trying to shove William off him. He needn't have bothered, because William's already gone, and that  _cannot_  be good.  
  
  
Hikaru bolts up and finds that not only is it not-good, it's actually  _worse_  than that.  
  
  
"'S bloody Old Home Week: first my Xander, and now . . .  _you_. Oh, don't gimme that sour look, you old poof. I'd know you anywhere, even with those ridiculous ears . . . give us a hug, you bog-trottin' bastard!” William crows happily. He hops off the bed laughing and hard, naked and no doubt wide-eyed. A come-spattered madman ( _not_  in gameface, and that, at least, is something) striding purposefully toward a very unimpressed Commander Spock--  
  
  
\--whose phaser is indeed set to stun, Hikaru's relieved to note as William's body drops to the floor like a box of rocks. Then he's scrambling off the bed with the throw, stepping over the kidnapper, and kneeling next to William who he covers, his own nudity and spatters forgotten, for the moment.  
  
  
"Are you alright, Lieutenant? We had reason to believe you had been abducted," Spock says blandly, as the blue glow fades from everyone's retinas. Blushing, unwilling to look up just yet, Hikaru busily arranges the throw so that William's erection is less obvious. Sort of the way a yellow corvette is less obvious at night, than in the day.  
  
  
“I'm, uh, fine, sir. Fine.” After taking a  _maximum_  stun to the chest, even a fledgling should be up in . . . minutes. Five, at most. A good deal sooner than any living humanoid would. And clearly William's a Master, because he's already starting to grumble and stir. “Everything is, uh. . . .”  
  
  
“Fine?” Spock suggests with whatever's drier than irony.  
  
  
“Yessir. Um. Fine, sir.” And it's witty responses like that that make Hikaru curious to hear what he'll come up with to explain the too-fast refractory time, explain the stunned woman on the floor, the state of himself, and the fact that by the standards of William's . . . culture . . . they're married.  
  
  
For a few seconds, all he can think is that William is the most gorgeous thing he's ever seen, even snorting and scrunching his face up grumpily.  _At least I won't have to explain to my commander how the naked, crazy dude who tried to hug him, came back from the dead, and oh,_ by the way _, he and I are married. . . ! Yeah, it's not-good now, but it could always suck much worse._  
  
  
Thus, it's not surprising his erection chooses this opportune moment to notice its proximity to William, and practically goes  _sproi-oi-oi-oi-oing!_  in it's haste to be fuck-ready, once more.  
  
  
One of the crowd near the door—constabulary or security team, thankfully  _not_  Spock—who'd obviously been paying  _way_  to much attention to Hikaru's naughty-zone, giggles nervously, and shrills:  _like, ohmigod, he's got a boner!_  in a horrified tone that's not unlike fingernails down a chalk board.  
  
  
All the blood in Hikaru's body is either in his face, or in his dick. The rest is in William's veins.  
  
  
_I'm a badass motherfucker, I really, really am,_  he reassures himself without any real vehemence. His claim is hotter than a five-alarm fire, and he's pretty sure that right now, just the sound of William's voice might make him come.  
  
  
Closing his eyes and picturing old lady Taylor in Matrix-style leather, the badass motherfucker hopes for another miracle.  


**Author's Note:**

> See me at [!](http://beetle-ships-it-all.Tumblr.com)


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